Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Churches of Vancouver

I'm in the very early stages of a project i'm working on where I am documenting the churches of Vancouver. I'm a little shocked just how many churches there are, there are almost a dozen within a 5 minute walking distance of my house which is slightly outside of downtown in Mount Pleasant. Considering Vancouver is suppose to be Canada's most 'modern' 'contemporary' 'cosmopolitan' city, the only exception being maybe Montreal I was surprised to find so many religious fanatics here. I have experienced so many door to door recruiters, preachers on street corners and just downright crazy people spurting scripture at me on transit. Moving from Ireland, which is still a very catholic country, I was surprised to find myself subjected to way more religious self-righteousness here in Canada.

Being surrounded by churches is nothing new, however the only difference is the Churches back home are actually quite beautiful coming from and architectural and historical point of view. Here they are extremely tacky and tasteless often resorting to massive lighting fixtures or crucifixes to stand out amongst the uniform suburban neighborhoods. Most locals would not bat a eyelid at this, however sometimes I cannot even believe someone actually got paid to build these designs.

This project, as already stated, is in the very early stages, I have only captured the churches closest to my house, my goal is to capture at least 3-5 churches a week and see where the project takes me.